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Multilevel debugging of parallel message passing programs Pedersen, Jan Bækgaard
Abstract
"Errare humanum est" - To err is human (Hieronymus, Epistle 57, 12); this fact has been known throughout time, and inevitably this means that humans writing computer programs are bound to introduce errors. With computers operating in Frankenstein's Igor mode, 'Your wish is my command', executing instructions without questioning their validity, errors introduced by humans are carried out. When adding parallel programming with message passing an error in one process can spread like a virus through message passing to other processes. Much research has been done on debugging sequential programs, and most of these theories and results apply directly to parallel programs, but the set of potential errors dramatically increases in size when introducing parallelism and message passing. Not only can one process fail, but sets of processes can deadlock, computational errors can be propagated from process to process, thus infecting otherwise correct programs. Correct programs can stop working because of the underlying implementation of the message passing system. We propose a framework for debugging parallel message passing programs: a multilevel approach that divides errors into separate groups at various levels from the well known sequential errors, such as stray pointers and array out of bound, to deadlock caused by incorrect message passing code, protocol errors and buffer allocation problems. We show the validity of this approach by developing new debugging techniques and analyses, and by implementing these in Millipede, a prototype multilevel debugger written for C programs that use the PVM message passing system.
Item Metadata
| Title |
Multilevel debugging of parallel message passing programs
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| Creator | |
| Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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| Date Issued |
2003
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| Description |
"Errare humanum est" - To err is human (Hieronymus, Epistle 57, 12); this fact has been
known throughout time, and inevitably this means that humans writing computer programs are
bound to introduce errors. With computers operating in Frankenstein's Igor mode, 'Your wish
is my command', executing instructions without questioning their validity, errors introduced by
humans are carried out. When adding parallel programming with message passing an error in one
process can spread like a virus through message passing to other processes.
Much research has been done on debugging sequential programs, and most of these theories
and results apply directly to parallel programs, but the set of potential errors dramatically
increases in size when introducing parallelism and message passing. Not only can one process
fail, but sets of processes can deadlock, computational errors can be propagated from process to
process, thus infecting otherwise correct programs. Correct programs can stop working because
of the underlying implementation of the message passing system.
We propose a framework for debugging parallel message passing programs: a multilevel approach
that divides errors into separate groups at various levels from the well known sequential
errors, such as stray pointers and array out of bound, to deadlock caused by incorrect message
passing code, protocol errors and buffer allocation problems. We show the validity of this approach
by developing new debugging techniques and analyses, and by implementing these in
Millipede, a prototype multilevel debugger written for C programs that use the PVM message
passing system.
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| Extent |
11362669 bytes
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| Genre | |
| Type | |
| File Format |
application/pdf
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| Language |
eng
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| Date Available |
2009-11-17
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| Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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| Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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| DOI |
10.14288/1.0051457
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| URI | |
| Degree | |
| Program | |
| Affiliation | |
| Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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| Graduation Date |
2003-11
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| Campus | |
| Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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| Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.